Pages

Monday, December 19, 2011

The Scone Hunt Begins: Diesel Cafe Review

I always thought that the mysterious "elf bread" referred to in Lord of the Rings, bread so potent and compact that it could keep a man going for weeks on just one bite, must actually be some derivative of the British scone. Wodgy, dense, glutinous to the extreme, packed with 30+ grams of fat: the scone really ought to count as a hefty meal rather than something to tide us over between lunch and dinner. And, oh, let me count the ways I adore this homely, humble creature. So much so, in fact, that I've decided that my first task as the Boston Bakery Babe is to work my way through every scone in Boston.

Not that Boston is well known for scones. It really isn't. But I have a hankering, dang it. Both for scones and for surveying the culinary lay of the land. I should also mention that I'm supposed to be on a gluten-free diet. But this little scone mania in no way represents a breakdown of will power or excessive carbohydrate starvation. No, no. A very little scone surely shall do no harm.

So today, for the flagship scone, I stopped by the Diesel Cafe, on a rainy, wet afternoon, and laid eyes on a maple oatmeal scone the size of a dinner plate. I lost no time in acquiring this, along with a gallon of iced jasmine green tea (well, it wasn't a gallon, but it may arguably be the most generous quantity of ice tea I've ever had).

Looks kind of tasty, eh? Here's how the Diesel scone sorts out:

Texture: Moist and soft, but peppered with chewy oats, with a hard but not impenetrable crust.

Taste: Unremarkable, except for the maple glaze, which was reminiscent of a maple glazed doughnut, extremely sweet.

Appearance: A deflated Ikea meatball smothered in gravy.

Accoutrement: Butter. But I had to ask for it as an extra.

Price: Pretty good. $3 for half a pound brick

Grade: B

This scone, on the whole, was like a bowl of mashed potatoes: filling comfort food without a ton of flavor, yet somehow you can't stop eating.

I will definitely be coming back to Diesel, if not for the ice tea of Zeus and the quasi pool-hall ambience, then to sample their other, flashier scones.